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Salt

Alchemists' Symbols

General Information about Salt

Table, kosher, rock, or brine (another name for a high concentration of salt in water) salt comes in many different forms and today can be obtained easily at a local grocery store. Salt is commonly found as sodium chloride (NaCl), potassium chloride (KCl), magnesium chloride (MgCl) and other less abundant forms. Societies in the past have flourished or collapsed due to the presence or absence of salt.

How Salt Effects you

Salt is essential for survival. Your body normally has 250 grams of salt which is roughly 3 to 4 salt shakers. As your body performs its daily functions it is constantly losing salt, it is vital to replace. When your body loses to much salt it loss the ability to transport nutrients and oxygen, or even send nerve impulses, the result is death. Early societies figured out that they needed salt for survival. Hunter-gatherers did not need to find salt because the animals they killed and consumed provided them with the salt they needed. On the other hand farmers needed to trade for salt because plants do not contain much salt.

Uses of Salt

When you think of salt and how to use it you would probably immediately think of food. Salt was used for thousands of years in preserving and preparing food but was used for other reasons as well. In Egyptian tombs salt was used as a preservative for bodies and has kept them in remarkable shape. Many societies throughout the world believed salt to have medical properties. Salt was used to help cure ailments from headaches to tuberculosis. Salt was also a key ingredient in curing leather, cleaning chimneys, soldering pipes, and glazing pottery. At times salt could be used as a type of currency. A more practical use for salt is to assist in melting ice or snow; today there are trucks that go around dumping a salt and sand mixture making roads safer. In some societies such as Greece, the salt that you put on your table could determine your social class

Methods of Obtaining Salt

Salt was valuable to all people and they went to great lengths to obtain it, techniques of obtaining salt varied depending upon the region and the economic situation, sometimes in order to retrieve salt new technologies were needed to be invented. One of the most common ways to obtain salt was by making an artificial evaporation pond. Evaporation ponds were dug into the ground and then flooded with sea water, over time the water was evaporated leaving behind salt. Another way was by boiling the sea water leaving behind salt. This process was faster but left behind little salt, wood was used to boil the water and England as well as other countries who used that method ran out of resources fast. In New England the boiling process was widely used in the time on the British blockade, they even put wooden stakes into the coast which slowly collected some salt on them but this process was unreliable. The Celtic people developed a technique where they dug into a mountain at a steep angle, 40 to 50 degrees. Salt was easily obtained through this method and later spread throughout Europe. The Chinese dug wells for salt and were able to get these wells nearly 300 feet deep. They were able to get them that deep by perfecting the percussion drilling technique which for many centuries was the most advanced way to drill. Another method was simply digging down and hoping to find rock salt, or a salt bed. Salt beds could be anywhere from 40 feet to 300 feet below ground. People went to great lengths to obtain salt and at times it could be dangerous especially for the people who retrieved the salt, mines could cave in maiming or killing the miners.

Salt and Food

Centuries ago food had to be caught and eaten soon after it was harvested or killed. By preserving foods with salt the lifetime of the foods drastically increased allowing long distance shipping up food and trade. Not only did preserving foods in salt allow them to be traded, it made other foods such as olives edible. Olives are very hard and are not edible naturally, after soaking the olives in a salt solution they become soft and edible. The very salt they preserved foods with could be used as a currency. Other foods such as cod and herring were caught out at sea, if the fish were not preserved in salt within a day of their capture they would begin to rot. Cod and herring were the main diet of many Europeans especially during days were red meat was not allowed. Other foods such as cheese and butter were the few dairy products that could be shipped, milk could not be refrigerated at the time and would spoil, if cheese was salted in would not spoil and was an ideal item to ship. Butter had to be salted with fine salt, coarse salt was undesirable. Vegetables were also salted in they were to be eaten or transported; sauerkraut was extremely popular because it was salted cabbage and did not spoil.

Salts Role in War

Salt was not used for violence in war, though chlorine one of the elements that make up salt is a lethal gas and sodium the other element blows up in water. Salt itself was a reason for conflict, at in ancient salty lake human bones have been found all around it, it was suggested that many battles were fought for the control on the lake. Salt profits in some cases were used to fund wars. When Napoleon was defeated in Russia it was a result of poor planning and a lack of salt. If Napoleon’s troops had more salt thousands would have not died from infection, which salt could have cured. One of the necessities or a soldier is salt; it preserves his rations till he can find more food, without salt it would be difficult for an army to advance forward. That is a reason why salt production areas

Salt and the Economy

Most established governments have taxes placed on many products. Societies centuries ago differed in their respective areas but still placed a tax on salt. Placing a tax on salt was a brilliant idea by the government, since salt was required by all people regardless of diet, gender, or social class everyone would pay the tax. If they did not purchase salt directly, the foods that they purchased at markets were heavily salted or they would rot. In some cases the government controlled the sale of salt, in others giant salt monopolies controlled salt, either way salt stimulated the economy. The retrieval of salt also provided jobs for workers, most of the work would be considered slave labor.

Salt and the Environment

Salt is a naturally occurring compound that can be found almost everywhere on the planet. The retrieval of salt could sometimes destroy towns or villages and ruin the environment. Miners would dig into mountain sides occasionally causing collapses of the mining shaft and possibly the mountain side, crushing whatever was below it. Also in order to transport salt ports and trading posts had to be created destroying coastlines. In other cases canals such as the Erie Canal were created to make transportation of products such as salt easier. In Cheshire England the pumping of brine out of the earth and its replacement with freshwater which eventually became brine eroded salt deposits causing massive sink mole which destroyed houses and massive holes formed in the landscape.

Salt Today

Today salt is still vital to beings around the globe. The United States is largest producer and consumer of salt, though most of the salt is used more deicing roads. Though the use of salt is in decline in most parts of the world, mainly that salting food is no longer the only way to preserve food; it is still a popular condiment on tables everywhere. Unlike it was centuries ago most salts have the same size, and today some salts have iodine in them which combats thyroid enlargement and other problems caused by iodine deficiency. Also salt is much cheaper today than it ever was, and remains abundant throughout the world. Salt is a vital nutrient to the body but needs to became in moderation, to much salt can result in medical problems such as high blood pressure.